Unlike many, I enjoy being campless at BM. Self-reliant they say. I volunteer many hours for the Org and when I return to my humble abode, I like to relax, and not have to cover KP duty for some conveniently missing campmate.

But alas, I just took a look at this years City plan, because I wanted to get an idea where to camp this year. Am I missing something or is only the area between K and L available for the Campless this year?

Every year the space for the independent has been decreased. This year, Campless space seems to be substantially less than 2017. If this trend continues with the same velocity, I may need to brush up on my KP skills for 2019 or plan to camp outside the trash fence and pay the $20 re-entrance fee daily. Looking at the map, besides the space between K & L, the map shows a shade of color. Can this be, how will the hoards of Campless that filter in late find space?

Luckily I have a WAP and will get there early this week; and will look for those placement flags to be certain, however.........anyone see anything wrong with this, does anyone care, or should I just go to therapy and explore my aversion to unexpected KP duties due to a missing, clueless, entitled campmate?

Traveler. My wap is for working census. Ive been early every year to greet or census. Someones gotta do it. Its my therapy too. I hate to see the open camping shrink. After the gates open its ALL open camping.

Those aren't buttermilk biscuits I'm lying on Savannah

Pictures or it didn't happen Greycoyote

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.Arthur Schopenhauer

Hey Zach, I think this year is different. I was kind of confused by the city plan map for this year because it had a very light blue halo all over the city, rather than the blue bubbles surrounding major roads and such. It turns out they're not hard-zoning areas for placed camps in the same manner as previous years.

Except maybe for the inner-most rings, the city plan this year is a lot more fuzzy. People will need to check for blue flags on the ground to see if a location is reserved. If not, it's open camping. This extends deeper into the city as well.

It does make it a pain to plan exactly where you should go if you're not bound to a camp, but it also opens up more space all throughout the city where people can set up shop without being a placed camp.

This change probably reflects how camp placements pan out anyway, and maybe even encourages higher densities on the interior.

"The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law." -- Christopher Hitchens

"This plan intentionally cannot be used to debate boundaries: we’ve softened the edges of the reserved-placement shading here more than in previous plans, as this zone fluctuates greatly between this initial city plan and the final placed camp plan displayed at the event site. Reserved camp space is marked on the playa with blue survey flags. Some of these plots are so large that they may appear unclaimed and available, when they actually are not. Be sure to camp outside the blue flagged zones to avoid encroaching on reserved zones and then having to relocate your camp."

However I understood it to say, hey we are unclear how much space we need, so we'll take it all, just look for the clearly marked blue border flags; unless the camp is too big, then move on or we'll move ya.

Oh yeah: for Traveler:

"The distance from the innermost Esplanade street to the Man is 2,500 feet. Esplanade to Algorithm Street, curb to curb, is 400 feet deep. Mid-city double-deep blocks are located between Elektro and Gort streets and are 440 feet deep. The remaining blocks are 200 feet deep."

Just some nonsense I had found on the City Plan page that had really very little to do with my post, sort of like your replies.

You are incorrect in your assumption. The amount of spaced for placed camps (theme camps, staff camps, etc) is approximately the same as it has been in previous years. What is different this year is how the boundaries have been drawn. It's actually mentioned on the BRC map page, if you care to read the notes:

This plan intentionally cannot be used to debate boundaries: we’ve softened the edges of the reserved-placement shading here more than in previous plans, as this zone fluctuates greatly between this initial city plan and the final placed camp plan displayed at the event site. Reserved camp space is marked on the playa with blue survey flags. Some of these plots are so large that they may appear unclaimed and available, when they actually are not. Be sure to camp outside the blue flagged zones to avoid encroaching on reserved zones and then having to relocate your camp.

Relax, Ratty. When a user (including me) writes a reply based solely on the original post in a thread there's always a chance that info may be repeated. Oddly enough, that doesn't make it any less true.

When the borders were less fuzzy, time would be wasted with boundary debates. Since the placement process continues up to and into build week, yet the BRC city map is published more than a month prior to that date, fuzzy borders are necessary. Yes, details are unclear at the time of the city map's publication, when you arrive on playa in one of the fuzzy zones look for the blue placement flags to guide you. In some neighborhoods the placement team may need additional space, but in others they may need less. Overall it works out to roughly the same each year (unfortunately for dozens of camps each years, that means they are not able to be placed, but that's a separate discussion).

Remember, if you are arriving early on a camp or project's work access pass (which is printed on the WAP), you are required to camp within that group's placed borders until the gate opens (and all staff camps are registered and placed).

Not quite - you still don't get to plunk down in a placed theme camp's reserved space without their permission (unless nobody from the camp showed up before gate opened, in which case their assigned space is up for grabs).